Here within the sports department at The Record, my colleague, Will Brown, and I do as much as possible to give readers a taste of our personalities.

We each write a weekly column ("Wednesdays with Will" and "Fridays with Phil" as we sometimes call them around here) and do some blogging in addition to our coverage of local high schools sports, Jaguars and anything else that comes up.

Bob Furnish took a bit longer than usual during this year’s Boston Marathon. As he puts it, while flashing a full grin, he was “taking extra time to soak it all in.”

After suffering a stroke and having a pacemaker put in late last year, even having recovered enough to run was a success in his eyes. He laughed and agreed when I called this year’s Boston Marathon “his own personal victory lap,” and he said it easily qualified as the most enjoyable experience he has had during any of his 26 times running the race.

Even for teams featuring prolific lineups, sometimes simply doing the small things well is enough to win games.

That was the case for Creekside during its 10-0 victory against Englewood in Thursday's Region 1-6A quarterfinals.

Without question, the Knights were the more talented team and likely could have bashed their way to another win if needed. But it was a pair of bunts by sixth-place hitter Kyle Nuckols that got Creekside going and had coach Luke Marabell excited after the game.

For as ugly and corrupt as college athletics has seemingly become in recent years under the clumsy hand of the NCAA, there is still something pure about high school sports.

That, to me, is incredibly refreshing.

I'm spending most of this week in Vero Beach for the softball state championships. Local teams Creekside (6A) and Ponte Vedra (5A) qualified for their respective Final Fours after each completed a tremendous regular season (the Sharks were undefeated) and enjoyed dominant runs through the playoffs.

Lance Stephenson may have no problem speaking his mind, but LeBron James has no problem stepping his game up to another level after a bit of provocation.

That doesn’t bode well for the Indiana Pacers, especially after Stephenson’s most recent mistimed outburst directed at the best basketball player on the planet.

The Miami Heat lead the Eastern Conference Finals 2-1 entering Game 4 Monday night after having taken the past two games. But that hasn’t slowed Stephenson, who used a recent press conference to take shots at James.